You can't open a car with a coat hanger any more, Val.

Stand Up Guys

(2012)

Al Pacino’s aging con is released from prison after 28 years. Best pal Christopher Walken is there to meet him, charged with the task of greasing him. Fisher Stevens’ bittersweet dramedy is (mostly) amiable but inconsequential, dragged down by a charmless script. If the movie just about sustains interest, it’s by virtue its status as the (belated) first ever pairing of these former screen titans.

Now the likes of Arnie and Sly are regular joint-headliners, the prospect of movie legends finally trading quips and blows doesn’t quite hold the anticipation it once did. It took De Niro and Pacino the best part of 20 years before they shared a coffee in Michael Mann’s Heat. When they reteamed another decade later, no one could have given a shit (it doesn’t help that Righteous Kill isn’t all that). Often the problem encountered is one of making the material withstand the star power (sometimes it’s merely that the star power is no longer so starry). De Niro, Brando and Norton together sounded unmissable, but The Score is really only so-so. And most of that so-so is to do with seeing them together. So it is with Stand Up Guys.

If Christopher Walken is a bastion of reliability, often especially when the material isn’t up to snuff, the same can’t be said of Pacino. I’d much rather watch Al on autopilot than De Niro, but it’s the difference between an actor who is permanently amped up and one who can barely stay awake. There is little nuance to a performance from either of them these days and, particularly in Pacino’s case, the increased exposure and lack of discernment in choosing projects has diminished his stature; he has no compunction about starring opposite Adam Sandler in drag or indulging in bargain basement (extended) stiffy gags. There’s something disappointingly dishevelled about him here, as he gives off a seedy, unkempt, Albert Steptoe vibe. Still, for a guy in his early-70s he remains remarkably vital. And, even given his lost lustre, it remains a small thrill to see him and Walken sharing obvious chemistry even in wholly unremarkable material.

Pacino has a night of freedom before Walken has to put a bullet in his head, so naturally they get up to all sorts of adventures. Unfortunately first-timer Noah Haidle’s script comes up short not only the inventive scenarios front, it also settles on all the most over-used ones. If Walken manages to imbue a sense of melancholy into his every scene, Pacino is called upon to snort prescription meds and swallow half a bottle of Viagra. And visit a brothel. And sort out some local wise guys. Most insensitive and ill considered is their encounter with a gang rape victim who seems remarkably untraumatised (it’s all okay you see, as she gets to take revenge on the rapists’ nuts with a baseball bat).

Although the poster would have you believe this is a triple act, Alan Arkin’s role is that of supporting actor. He’s magnificent, though, and the picture really steps up a gear when he’s riffing with Walken and Pacino. More than the other two, Arkin’s had a great selection of roles in the 21^st century, after not really having much of a profile during the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The supporting cast includes one of those over-used actors as the villain, Mark Margolis (most visible across three seasons of Breaking Bad). He shows up, chews scenery, leaves. Julianne Margulies appears for a couple of minutes as Arkin’s daughter. Fisher Stevens, best known for a playing a slightly dodgy Indian stereotype in Short Circuit, is the director on his sophomore feature. If the cast refer to him to as an actor’s director, it’s a nice way of saying he doesn’t have much stylistic sense about him. If this means the attention is all on the actors, it has the side effect of exposing the script’s deficiencies to the harsh light of day. At its best the affair feels like something of a throwback picture. Unfortunately that also extends to the almost-‘80s movie checklist of larks these guys get mixed up in (washed through a post-Judd Apatow gross-out filter).

I mentally linked this to Last Vegas when both were in production, as both feature a medley of old-timers on a jaunt. Stand Up Guys’ premise is much closer to that of In Bruges, however. Which I’m sure could have done with a dose of Christopher Walken (what movie couldn’t, and Bruges director Martin McDonagh subsequently used to great effect him in Seven Psychopaths), but was pretty much perfect. Stand Up Guys is a long way from greatness, and has the temerity to shamelessly rip off They Live’s classic line of dialogue (several times). But, if you have fairly low expectations, you could do worse than seeing this trio struggle valiantly to make a silk purse out of a soiled script.

***

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Do you know that the leading cause of death for beavers is falling trees?

The Interpreter (2005) Sydney Pollack’s final film returns to the conspiracy genre that served him well in both the 1970s ( Three Days of the Condor ) and the 1990s ( The Firm ). It also marks a return to Africa, but in a decidedly less romantic fashion than his 1985 Oscar winner. Unfortunately the result is a tepid, clichéd affair in which only the technical flourishes of its director have any merit. The film’s main claim to fame is that Universal received permission to film inside the United Nations headquarters. Accordingly, Pollack is predictably unquestioning in its admiration and respect for the organisation. It is no doubt also the reason that liberal crusader Sean Penn attached himself to what is otherwise a highly generic and non-Penn type of role. When it comes down to it, the argument rehearsed here of diplomacy over violent resolution is as banal as they come. That the UN is infallible moral arbiter of this process is never in any doubt. The cynicism

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog